American League

Mariners

• Dylan Moore should get some playing time at second base.

Dylan Moore’s 2020 breakout has warranted more playing time, Mariners manager Scott Servais said recently. And the clearest spot for the third-year utility man — who played every position except catcher from ’19-20 — is at second, where he played mostly after Shed Long Jr. was shut down on Sept. 12 with a shin injury.
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“As we look forward, Dylan Moore had an outstanding offensive season. He really did,” Servais said. “And he plays all over the field. It’s a great strength of his and one that’s nice to have as a manager, where you can plug that guy in anywhere. I don’t want to take that away from Dylan. … We’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out, but Dylan has earned the right to get more regular time at second base.”

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American League

Angels

• Signs continue to point to Jared Walsh being the full-time first baseman.

Albert Pujols is entering the final season of his 10-year contract signed before the 2011 season, but he’s likely to spend it in a backup role. Jared Walsh had a breakout rookie season in 2020, batting .293/.324/.646 with nine homers and 26 RBIs in 32 games. He will head into Spring Training as the favorite to be the club’s regular first baseman, but he’ll have to earn the job, especially considering the small sample size in 2020. But Walsh appears likely to be the regular at first base with Pujols serving as a backup and occasional DH when Ohtani isn’t available. Matt Thaiss could also see some action at the position, but Walsh has moved ahead of Thaiss on the organization’s depth chart.

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Jayson Stark asked several people in MLB about when next season will start and most think it will be delayed.

But in 2021, owners appear ready to dig in. If they can’t open ticket offices and play baseball games in front of real human beings who purchase real tickets, they’re likely to push to delay the season until they can.

“The belief is, we can’t have games without fans anymore,” said one NL club official. “And we understand that in certain parts of the country, it’s going to be impossible to have fans in April.”

So if it’s impossible to have fans in April, they’d prefer to wait until May. If it’s impossible to have fans in May, they’d prefer to wait until June. But even if they’re wrong and fans are permitted as soon as early April, their question is: How many fans?

First, don’t get too excited about any preset fantasy draft dates. There is a good chance the start of the season will be pushed back so everyone in a draft must know that possibility.

Second, players may have to go through the ramp-up and down and back up procedure again. The season could be a huge mess again with delays and an unknown start date.
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American League

Athletics

• A.J. Puk is expected to be part of the rotation.

A.J. Puk is progressing well from surgery. Forst counts him among the A’s starting rotation members along with Montas, Luzardo, Bassitt and Manaea.

— Martín Gallegos (@MartinJGallegos) December 9, 2020

The A’s are going to need to get their rotation 10 deep with that injury-prone group. And those replacements could get hurt and/or underperform so 10 might not be enough.
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• Pitcher Kohei Arihara (NPB) will join shortstop Ha-Seong Kim (KBO) as the top international free agents.

The news on Kim has been known for a while but the Arihara news will be interesting for any team needing pitching (i.e. all teams). The 28-year-old Arihara had his best season in 2019 with a 2.46 ERA, 0.919 WHIP, and 8.8 K/9. All the stats were a little worse in 2020. The Davenport translation on his 2020 season is a 5.09 ERA and 5.9 K/9. Not the best numbers so maybe he’ll end up as a long reliever.

• The KBO’s Sung-Bum Na (OF/DH) has been posted and MLB teams have 30 days to negotiate a signing.

Na has been an above-average hitter in KBO since his second year in the league and a star-level performer for much of that time. In 4140 career plate appearances since debuting as a 23-year-old, he’s batted .317/.384/.542 with 179 home runs, 244 doubles and 25 triples.

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He moved to right field for the 2015 campaign, and that’s been his primary defensive home since, although he’s still logged some occasional time in center — most recently in 2019 when he started 18 games there. However, Na’s 2019 season was cut short by a severe knee injury that resulted in him being placed on a stretcher and taken off the field in an ambulance, as he told ESPN’s Marly Rivera earlier this year. He underwent surgery and spent seven months rehabbing from that procedure.

Na doesn’t seem like a priority add with the defensive limitations and he is coming off a major knee injury. Quite a few major leaguers fit the desciption as a broken down slugger.
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General

• Many hitters might wait to sign until the National League has said yes or no on the designated hitter.

Ozuna, who turns 30 on Thursday, is not strictly a DH. His agent, Melvin Roman, is marketing him as a left fielder who started 21 games in the outfield last season and was fully recovered from the shoulder surgery he underwent in October 2018. Braves coaches say Ozuna worked hard to strengthen his arm in his one season with the club, throwing every other day during summer training camp. With continued work, they believe his throwing can be average, his play in the outfield serviceable.

A rival executive was less convinced, saying, “He is a DH. If I was his agent, I’m not doing anything until I know the rules. I might have 30 suitors. Or I might have 15.” An agent for another free-agent position player agreed, saying, “If there were certainty with the DH, I believe everyone’s market would be enhanced.”

In a year with so many unknowns, early drafters might have to wait to find out who is playing where and what role they will play. It’ll be interesting to see how far unsigned players drop in ADP as the season gets closer to the March drafts.

• Jerry Dipoto believes the Mariners and other teams will only allow their pitchers to throw 170 innings next season.

“The one thing I’m certain of, is that the innings totals for our youngest starting pitchers — there’s only so far we’re going to be willing to go with them in 2021 as a result of this year’s short schedule,” he said. “And I think that makes us like 29 other teams in the industry. We’re not going to run starting pitchers out there for 170 innings next year. We’ll build them up more carefully.”

The reports on projected innings will be all over the place with Dylan Bundy planning on taking on a full workload. I think the assumption needs to start around Dipoto’s number (even though he’s not Bundy’s GM) and as reports come in, projections can be individually adjusted.
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American League

Astros

• Josh James is going to be out for six to eight months recovering from hip surgery.

The recovery time for that procedure is approximately 6-8 months, the club announced on Saturday. A sixth-month recovery would take James into late April, while an eight-month recovery would stretch into late June. That’s another blow to an Astros pitching staff that already lost ace Justin Verlander for the entire 2021 season after he recently underwent Tommy John surgery.

I don’t see any reason to roster him in any league that drafts before there is a positive update on his status.

Athletics

• Khris Davis is likely limited to the short side of a DH platoon.

After four seasons as the team’s everyday DH, Khris Davis faced mainly left-handed pitchers in 2020, which limited his playing time to 30 games. He split the DH role with Canha, who played 21 games in that spot.

He’s worthless in fantasy right now.
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• A couple of Korean players may get posted this year. The most likely to contribute in fantasy is Ha-seong Kim who Eric Longenhagen has already written up.

The Kiwoom Heroes of the Korea Baseball Organization will post star shortstop Ha-Seong Kim for Major League clubs this winter, MLBTR has learned. He’d previously voiced a desire to be posted, and the team plans to honor those wishes this winter. All 30 Major League clubs will have the opportunity to bid on the infielder, who’ll turn just 25 years old next week.

The other is pitcher Hyeon-jong Yang

Kia Tigers lefty Hyeon-jong Yang is expected to explore offers from MLB teams this winter, Jeeho Yoo of South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency tweets. The former KBO MVP is wrapping up a two-year deal with the same Tigers club with which he’s spent the past 14 seasons.

• In the shortened season, hitters just didn’t get the live at-bats needed to be at 100% to start the season.

“There will still be individualized focuses for all the players and different opportunities to help certain guys with their swing development, certain guys with their approach development and certain guys racking up at-bats.”

Zoll and the staff also want to help pitchers rack up the innings total. But as Zoll pointed out, pitchers had it easier to produce the workload needed as long they had access to “a mound and a fence.” The idea then was that the Twins wanted all of their pitchers ready for live batting practice and games, which began on Sept. 24.

One concept I’ll take from this past season is that hitters need a certain number of plate appearances to get up to speed.
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I’m just trying to grind through any nuggets in the end-of-season wrapups. I’ve found that teams out of the playoff picture provided better nuggets since they beat writers filling their article quotas writing about possible postseason lineups and rotations. I’ve got a few more late articles to comb through. I expect little to no usable news until the winter meetings.

American League

Angels

• Dylan Bundy should be ready for a full workload in 2021.

Angels pitching coach Mickey Callaway said the way he and his staff approached the summer’s pandemic-induced layoff should help curb this. He estimated that Dylan Bundy has thrown “about 180 innings” this year from all the throwing on his ranch in Oklahoma, the summer training and his 65 2/3 innings in the big leagues this season. That would be about the same amount as what he threw in 2019 (161 2/3 with Baltimore plus spring training). It’s still something to monitor next year, though.

I expect all veteran pitchers to have the same limit since teams were most likely looking ahead to 2021, but it would be nice to have it stated about as many pitchers as possible.

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• One item missing from this article are hitters who played through an injury. While it needs to be updated, all the information can be located here.

• For Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn, it took about two months for mechanical adjustments to take hold.

“In a shorter season, obviously everything gets magnified,” Rangel pointed out. “It’s tougher. In a regular season, we’d have about three or four months more to go, which gives you a little bit more time to kind of settle things down. It’s just hard this year, the way things are.”

Case in point: Lance Lynn.

In 2019, Lynn was 2-2 with a 6.51 ERA after five starts. By the time his recovery started to look legit, he was about to make his 11th start (Gibson, meanwhile, has 11 starts this season). If the season ended after two months and 12 starts, as it will for Gibson in 2020, Lynn’s line would have been good but not great: 7-4, 4.50 ERA, 77 strikeouts and 22 walks in 74 innings. Instead, Lynn took June through September and finished fifth in Cy Young voting.

The findings are just a data point that seems to be in line with other findings. Players need around a month or two to implement a change or get ready for the season. Just keep the idea in mind when a hitter is coming off the IL or missed part of Spring Training.
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